Abstract Detail

Plastic plants on changing landscapes: where and when plasticity enables populations to respond to changing environments.

Environmental change requires organisms to relocate or alter their forms via genetic adaptation and/or plasticity in order to persist. To preserve biodiversity, the limits of phenotypic plasticity and its underlying adaptability must be determined. This research will use an emerging evolutionary model Pelargonium across arid and Mediterranean biomes in Australia and South Africa to ask: where and when do plastic responses to environment promote persistence in diverse and rapidly changing landscapes? Landscape genomics and phenomics will be integrated with association analysis to determine i) the scale at which environment filters genotypes with different capacities for plastic responses in native and newly invasive populations and ii) how closely related species have adapted to similar climate gradients over longer evolutionary time scales. Knowledge gained will address global biodiversity priorities and inform the mechanisms of where, and when, plasticity enables plant populations to respond and acclimate to changing environments.